books vii. and viii.

The best edition of Commines is the one edited by B. de Mandrot and
published at Paris in 1901-1903. For this edition the author used a
manuscript hitherto unknown and more complete than the others, and in
his introduction he gives an account of the life of Commines.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The _Memoirs_ remained in MS. till 1524, when part of
them were printed by Galliot du Pre, the remainder first seeing light
in 1525. Subsequent editions were put forth by Denys Sauvage in 1552,
by Denys Godefroy in 1649, and by Lenglet Dufresnoy in 1747. Those of
Mademoiselle Dupont (1841-1848) and of M. de Chantelauze (1881) have
many merits, but the best was given by Bernard de Mandrot: _Memoirs de
Philippe de Commynes_, from the MS. of Anne de Polignac (1901).
Various translations of Commines into English have appeared, from that
of T. Danett in 1596 to that, based on the Dupont edition, which was
printed in Bohn's series in 1855. (C. B.*)

COMMISSARIAT, the department of an army charged with the provision of
supplies, both food and forage, for the troops. The supply of military
stores such as ammunition is not included in the duties of a
commissariat. In almost every army the duties of transport and supply
are performed by the same corps of departmental troops.

COMMISSARY (from Med. Lat. _commissarius_, one to whom a charge or trust
is committed), generally, a representative; e.g., the emperor's
representative who presided in his absence over the imperial diet; and
especially, an ecclesiastical official who exercises in special
circumstances the jurisdiction of a bishop (q.v.); in the Church of
England this jurisdiction is exercised in a Consistory Court (q.v.),
except in Canterbury, where the court of the diocesan as opposed to the
metropolitan jurisdiction of the archbishop is called a commissary
court, and the judge is the commissary general of the city and diocese
of Canterbury. When a see is vacant the jurisdiction is exercised by a
"special commissary" of the metropolitan. Commissary is also a general
military term for an official charged with the duties of supply,
transport and finance of an army. In the 17th and 18th centuries the
_commissaire des guerres_, or _Kriegskommissar_ was an important
official in continental armies, by whose agency the troops, in their
relation to the civil inhabitants, were placed upon semi-political
control. In French military law, _commiss